This invention relates to textile materials and, more particularly, to the application of finishing agents to textile materials.
Conventionally, the treating of textile materials with finishing agents, e.g., coloring agents or dyes, resins, softeners, flame retardent agents, soil release agents and the like involves a procedure wherein the finishing agent is either dissolved or dispersed in a suitable liquid medium carrier such as an aqueous or organic liquid, and then applied to the textile, such as by passing the textile through a bath or vat containing the solution or dispersion. Thereafter, the carrier is removed from the fabric, usually by evaporation with or without heat. Since only a small amount of the finishing agent is needed to achieve the desired effect, a relatively large amount of carrier (water) is used to assure uniform distribution of the finishing agent. This results in relatively large amounts of liquid medium which must be removed from the fabric. Consequently, a substantial amount of the cost incurred in such processes resides in the liquid medium removal step.
For many textiles it is desired to apply more than one finishing agent thereto. For example, it may be desirable to first dye the textile and then apply a durable press agent or to apply both durable press and soil release agents to the textile. Since relatively few of such combinations of finishing agents can be applied together friom the same medium, such multiple agents are typically applied to the textile in a serial manner. Thus, for example, a coloring agent is first applied to the textile; the textile is then dried; and the colored textile then treated with a further fabric finishing agent in a conventional manner and then re-dried.
In the foregoing process, the disadvantages earlier described as being associated with the conventional utilization or large quantities of liquid medium in the application of finishing agents are necessarily multiplied. In an effort to avoid the difficulties involved with large amounts of liquid and the high cost of liquid removal processes, it has been attempted to conduct the serial application of finishing agents to a textile without intermediate drying of the textile after each application. However, this manner of operation itself leads to serious problems. Thus, when the wet textile to which a first finishing agent solution or dispersion has been applied is brought into contact with a second liquid finishing agent composition, e.g., when the wet textile is passed through a bath thereof, the liquid associated with the textile from the first application serves to dilute or otherwise alter the composition of the second finishing agent solution or dispersion. It is thereby nearly impossible to accurately control the application of specified quantities of the second finishing agent to the textile, even with the utilization of complicated measuring devices and bath replenishment techniques.